The Department of Justice has instituted new guidelines regarding identification in photo arrays of suspects, making the procedure more scientifically rigorous. Notably, these changes include a “blind” administration—where the person giving the exam doesn’t actually know who the actual suspect is—and recording the identification session.

There are times when such "blind" administration may be impracticable, for example, when all of the officers in an investigating office already know who the suspect is, or when a victim-witness refuses to participate in a photo array unless it is administered by the investigating officer. In such cases, the administrator should adopt "blinded" procedures, so that he or she cannot see the order or arrangement of the photographs viewed by the witness or which photograph( s) the witness is viewing at any particular moment.

These guidelines apply specifically to federal agencies including the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency, and not to local law enforcement.

Further Reading

However, some local law enforcement agencies have already begun to adopt such policies, including Dallas and Baltimore. In December 2013, the International Association of Chiefs of Police made similar recommendations in conjunction with the Innocence Project. The DOJ’s 2017 revision comes 18 years after the last time federal law enforcement addressed photo array procedures and noted that “research and practice have significantly evolved since then.”

In that 2014 paper, the NAS also recommended that all photo array identification sessions be recorded where possible. As the DOJ summarized:

A witness's identification and assessment of certainty cannot be easily challenged if law enforcement agencies electronically record the identification procedure and the witness's response. Electronic recording preserves the identification process for later review in court and also protects officers against unfounded claims of misconduct. Video-recording is helpful because it allows fact finders to directly evaluate a witness's verbal and nonverbal reactions and any aspects of the array procedure that would help to contextualize or explain the witness' selection. As of 2013, approximately one-fifth of state and local law enforcement agencies had instituted video-recording of photo arrays.

“Eyewitness identifications play an important role in our criminal justice system, and it’s important that we get them right,” said Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in a statement last week.

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Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is due out in May 2018 from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

71 Reader Comments

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

Just one of many problems with eyewitness ID. Turns out, humans have remarkably bad recall.

That's actually the point of the "blind" or "blinded" ID sessions; turns out, body language alone can bias eyewitness IDs. If the cop is *sure* that the suspect is guilty, it can frequently be telegraphed through body language and facial expression. This kind of surety can be contagious, and might cause a witness to not only falsely ID a person, but falsely ID them *without being aware that their memory is essentially fiction.* It's a big problem, and relatively not well known, and I'm glad that guidance is being handed down to reduce possible false positives.

This makes so much sense it's actually shocking to see that the government is applying it. Law enforcement guidance of lineup identification, whether overt or via tells is a major problem. I hope all agencies and departments implement this sooner rather than later.

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

Just one of many problems with eyewitness ID. Turns out, humans have remarkably bad recall.

That's actually the point of the "blind" or "blinded" ID sessions; turns out, body language alone can bias eyewitness IDs. If the cop is *sure* that the suspect is guilty, it can frequently be telegraphed through body language and facial expression. This kind of surety can be contagious, and might cause a witness to not only falsely ID a person, but falsely ID them *without being aware that their memory is essentially fiction.* It's a big problem, and relatively not well known, and I'm glad that guidance is being handed down to reduce possible false positives.

Not only this, but a single instance of this will imprint the "fingered" person in the witnesses' mind as being the guilty party, due to ID sessions being stressful but safe situations. This means that if they later have to repeat the identification (in court, in a double blind lineup, etc.) they are very likely to identify the person flagged by the first tester over the person they actually witnessed committing the crime (if they're both in the lineup).

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

Just one of many problems with eyewitness ID. Turns out, humans have remarkably bad recall.

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

I hear you about that. I could post my two driver's licenses in CA, the expired one (that I had for like 10 years) and my new one. No one recognizes me from my 10 year old one.

Still, there's a lot more to the problem than simply not having the right picture. People very often don't even recall what they saw correctly, let alone accurately.

When I was in college, I did a presentation for my logic and critical thinking class (the subject at the time was observing what's really there). I began with the usual overhead projector films (yeah, old school, I'm old, I'm allowed). I set up a video camera to tape me while I did this, saying it was to help me for pointers in my speech class. About five minutes into it, the real presentation started. I had a friend dress up in a rented gorilla suit carrying a cast-iron frying pan come racing in to the class. He shouted a phrase (And I can't for the life of me remember what I told him to say these many decades later), tossed an orange into the air, caught it in the frying pan and ran out again.

I then asked the class to stop, not talk to anyone else and write down what they saw and heard.

No one got everything right. Half didn't even see a gorilla. More than half didn't see a frying pan (the most popular hallucination was a catcher's mitt). One person saw the orange as an orange. Most thought it was a tennis ball. Many saw a bear suit. One thought it was a black rabbit.

Not one could recall the phrase at all. Most didn't hear it (It was actually pretty clearly said).

I asked everyone if they were sure of their answers and everyone said yes - positively. It had JUST HAPPENED, after all.

I then ran the tape, twice, because most folks didn't think it was a tape of the actual event the first time through. To say most then understood the importance of focus and concentration when trying to recall unexpected and/or traumatic events would be an understatement.

So the problem isn't JUST bad pictures. It's bad memories. The eyewitness, although compelling in court, is, IMHO, a basically unreliable data point that absolutely MUST be confirmed by the physical evidence. For your stores, I'd recommend video cameras inside and out. That way all you need to do is look at the date and the time stamp and hand the cops the photo, instead of relying on them to hand you their crappy ones.

I think we should also move to showing actual recent photographs of the person when possible. As the earlier comment said, a driver's license photo from "20" years ago is hardly useful for ID except against the person holding/presenting the ID.

I'm glad someone's studying eyewitness identification procedures. It would be nice to see a lot of criminal-justice procedure subjected to scientific study. E.g. what are the effects of Rule 41 on the rate of false positives and false negatives?

I think we should also move to showing actual recent photographs of the person when possible. As the earlier comment said, a driver's license photo from "20" years ago is hardly useful for ID except against the person holding/presenting the ID.

I guess it varies by state but in mine they expire after three or four years.

When I was in college, I did a presentation for my logic and critical thinking class (the subject at the time was observing what's really there). I began with the usual overhead projector films (yeah, old school, I'm old, I'm allowed). I set up a video camera to tape me while I did this, saying it was to help me for pointers in my speech class. About five minutes into it, the real presentation started. I had a friend dress up in a rented gorilla suit carrying a cast-iron frying pan come racing in to the class. He shouted a phrase (And I can't for the life of me remember what I told him to say these many decades later), tossed an orange into the air, caught it in the frying pan and ran out again.

I then asked the class to stop, not talk to anyone else and write down what they saw and heard.

No one got everything right. Half didn't even see a gorilla. More than half didn't see a frying pan (the most popular hallucination was a catcher's mitt). One person saw the orange as an orange. Most thought it was a tennis ball. Many saw a bear suit. One thought it was a black rabbit.

Not one could recall the phrase at all. Most didn't hear it (It was actually pretty clearly said).

I asked everyone if they were sure of their answers and everyone said yes - positively. It had JUST HAPPENED, after all.

I then ran the tape, twice, because most folks didn't think it was a tape of the actual event the first time through. To say most then understood the importance of focus and concentration when trying to recall unexpected and/or traumatic events would be an understatement.

So the problem isn't JUST bad pictures. It's bad memories. The eyewitness, although compelling in court, is, IMHO, a basically unreliable data point that absolutely MUST be confirmed by the physical evidence. For your stores, I'd recommend video cameras inside and out. That way all you need to do is look at the date and the time stamp and hand the cops the photo, instead of relying on them to hand you their crappy ones.

Great, now I'm unsure about every single thing that (I think) I've ever experienced

It is about time! Now how about a zillion other forensic tests. Test the forensics people on the same kind of blind information. eg fabric match, or chemical analysis etc. Blind test , known samples. Unless you can pass the test with 95% you cannot be an expert witness on said subject. How many innocent people are in jail because an "expert" witness really just made a guess as to the attributes of some key piece of evidence.

Would love if they solved the mistaken belief that fingerprints are unique too. Just because a system claims that my fingerprints were at a crime scene doesn't mean that I was there or had ever been there.

Fingerprints are open to interpretation. A fingerprint match just means that someone with similar fingerprints was there AND it might be that person. It is not 100% proof.

Many things that socalled "forensic scientists" are taught are not completely true.

I think we should also move to showing actual recent photographs of the person when possible. As the earlier comment said, a driver's license photo from "20" years ago is hardly useful for ID except against the person holding/presenting the ID.

I guess it varies by state but in mine they expire after three or four years.

This presumes there is a recent photo available in the first place. In many cases, there isn't. Which to me renders any attempt to positively ID someone from an old photo pretty pointless and useless at all, let alone as evidence in a courtroom.

But the problem is how compelling the "eyewitness" is in court. Were I a trial lawyer today, I'd be tossing all sorts of studies at the jury that prove how bad most folks are at testifying to what really happened, versus testifying to what they THINK they saw. I'm hoping that eventually, eyewitnesses will be eliminated from consideration unless what they say happened has a LOT more substantiation than merely their word. So it would always be a matter of "the eyewitness says this is what happened and the physical evidence supports them" instead of a he-said/he-said thing that relies on the jury making the decision as to which one is telling the truth.

That's really not a very "scientific" method of arriving at a verdict, since it's so often wrong.

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

My DL picture was taken 29 years ago when I was 20 yo. I made two attempts in the last 10 years or so to change the picture, went to the DMV twice, had a picture taken. Both times the DMV mailed a new DL with the old photo. I tried to be a good citizen. I gave up. I won't waste another day at the DMV.

I watch many of the "Forensic Files" and similar. Shocking how frequently this comes up. Case in "Maryland" maybe? where a rapist was miss-identified. He was exonerated, by DNA, She refused to believe it. Perpetrator ultimately caught and had a pretty strong resemblance. Victim nearly killed the miss-identified person before this happened though.

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

Matching real people with photos is hard. There are plenty of people I work with in an office in another city, I regularly only see their profile pic in email/chat, and I often can't match it to them when I see them in real life.

Would love if they solved the mistaken belief that fingerprints are unique too. Just because a system claims that my fingerprints were at a crime scene doesn't mean that I was there or had ever been there.

Fingerprints are open to interpretation. A fingerprint match just means that someone with similar fingerprints was there AND it might be that person. It is not 100% proof.

Many things that socalled "forensic scientists" are taught are not completely true.

It's about time that these procedures are being implemented. Those of us in the legal/criminology departments have been talking about these witness reliability issues and the ways it could be mitigated. We've had tested and proven methods since at least the 90s so over 20 years for things to finally change.

Enhanced cognitive interview, recounting events from multiple perspectives, separating witnesses, don't give feedback to the witness and recording interviews can all help as well. It's also why I would never consent to doing a live lineup regardless of my innocence as the risks of them screwing up and picking me wrongly. We need to place more restrictions and less weight on eyewitness testimony.

I have unusually high recall (vivid but not quite eidetic, but that's probably not a real thing, anyway), and even I'm bad at matching people to photos in many cases. Just today, I went to introduce myself to someone at work. I had looked at his picture several times in our address book. His name was on his door, and I still had to verify he was the right person, because he didn't look like what I was expecting. During our conversation, I looked at his badge, which has the same photo. He was wearing it around his neck, and I still don't know if I could have confirmed he matched the photo without careful study. I'd guess the photo was taken less than 5 years ago.

Would love if they solved the mistaken belief that fingerprints are unique too. Just because a system claims that my fingerprints were at a crime scene doesn't mean that I was there or had ever been there.

Fingerprints are open to interpretation. A fingerprint match just means that someone with similar fingerprints was there AND it might be that person. It is not 100% proof.

Many things that socalled "forensic scientists" are taught are not completely true.

Seriously, forensic's is filled with psuedo-science dressed up in lab coats. Lots of DNA evidence and testimony from the late 80's through the 90's has been overturned as false. This is where you have a lab technician giving 1 in 1 million kind of numbers to juries regarding DNA matches, and it turns out it is a complete fabrication. Sadder still, is none of those technicians are in jail for perjury.

There has been a recent spat of drug lab technicians ending up in jail. With the war on marijuana winding down, the DEA is looking for new targets. Who would have thought that jobs in pharmacology and drug testing would attract people who like drugs!

Would love if they solved the mistaken belief that fingerprints are unique too. Just because a system claims that my fingerprints were at a crime scene doesn't mean that I was there or had ever been there.

Fingerprints are open to interpretation. A fingerprint match just means that someone with similar fingerprints was there AND it might be that person. It is not 100% proof.

Many things that socalled "forensic scientists" are taught are not completely true.

Seriously, forensic's is filled with psuedo-science dressed up in lab coats. Lots of DNA evidence and testimony from the late 80's through the 90's has been overturned as false. This is where you have a lab technician giving 1 in 1 million kind of numbers to juries regarding DNA matches, and it turns out it is a complete fabrication. Sadder still, is none of those technicians are in jail for perjury.

There has been a recent spat of drug lab technicians ending up in jail. With the war on marijuana winding down, the DEA is looking for new targets. Who would have thought that jobs in pharmacology and drug testing would attract people who like drugs!

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

I hear you about that. I could post my two driver's licenses in CA, the expired one (that I had for like 10 years) and my new one. No one recognizes me from my 10 year old one.

Still, there's a lot more to the problem than simply not having the right picture. People very often don't even recall what they saw correctly, let alone accurately.

When I was in college, I did a presentation for my logic and critical thinking class (the subject at the time was observing what's really there). I began with the usual overhead projector films (yeah, old school, I'm old, I'm allowed). I set up a video camera to tape me while I did this, saying it was to help me for pointers in my speech class. About five minutes into it, the real presentation started. I had a friend dress up in a rented gorilla suit carrying a cast-iron frying pan come racing in to the class. He shouted a phrase (And I can't for the life of me remember what I told him to say these many decades later), tossed an orange into the air, caught it in the frying pan and ran out again.

I then asked the class to stop, not talk to anyone else and write down what they saw and heard.

No one got everything right. Half didn't even see a gorilla. More than half didn't see a frying pan (the most popular hallucination was a catcher's mitt). One person saw the orange as an orange. Most thought it was a tennis ball. Many saw a bear suit. One thought it was a black rabbit.

Not one could recall the phrase at all. Most didn't hear it (It was actually pretty clearly said).

I asked everyone if they were sure of their answers and everyone said yes - positively. It had JUST HAPPENED, after all.

I then ran the tape, twice, because most folks didn't think it was a tape of the actual event the first time through. To say most then understood the importance of focus and concentration when trying to recall unexpected and/or traumatic events would be an understatement.

So the problem isn't JUST bad pictures. It's bad memories. The eyewitness, although compelling in court, is, IMHO, a basically unreliable data point that absolutely MUST be confirmed by the physical evidence. For your stores, I'd recommend video cameras inside and out. That way all you need to do is look at the date and the time stamp and hand the cops the photo, instead of relying on them to hand you their crappy ones.

Not only are our memories bad they can be re-written after the fact. By suggestion. Either intentionally or otherwise. There are a host of experiments that show this. Every time you recall a memory bits are re-written, and reinforced. So not only is it wrong you are more sure its correct.

I heard one guy say he would not be a part of a live lineup. Other people lamented old photos. Hmmm. If there are live people available, then of course there are recent photos available. Would you like to borrow my cell phone right now? Take pictures of the people who would be in the live lineup and then show the pictures. Am I missing something?

If a prime suspect is on the lam, then yes you may not have a recent photo. For everyone else, just take a new photo.

I heard one guy say he would not be a part of a live lineup. Other people lamented old photos. Hmmm. If there are live people available, then of course there are recent photos available. Would you like to borrow my cell phone right now? Take pictures of the people who would be in the live lineup and then show the pictures. Am I missing something?

If a prime suspect is on the lam, then yes you may not have a recent photo. For everyone else, just take a new photo.

The first study on this subject that I could find was from 1974. There are hundreds more, including a rather in depth look at how it effects the legal system by Stanford Law in 1999. Not a single one I've found speaks positive.

In fact, for picking between 2 or 3 subjects, it seems to be less reliable then just picking at random. So yeah, I would call this a bit overdue.

Next they should look into the fact that from 1999 on we've also known that police confessions are also problematic. A study by Elizabeth F. Loftus showed that police were able to implant false memories in an interrogation... without trying ... and that data was later used in a double blind study to show that a trained interrogator could get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit almost twice as reliably as they could get a guilty person to confess.

But hey, one thing at a time. It's not like there are people sitting on death row because of eye witness testimony or who confessed to crimes, later to profess they never did it.

The first study on this subject that I could find was from 1974. There are hundreds more, including a rather in depth look at how it effects the legal system by Stanford Law in 1999. Not a single one I've found speaks positive.

In fact, for picking between 2 or 3 subjects, it seems to be less reliable then just picking at random. So yeah, I would call this a bit overdue.

Next they should look into the fact that from 1999 on we've also known that police confessions are also problematic. A study by Elizabeth F. Loftus showed that police were able to implant false memories in an interrogation... without trying ... and that data was later used in a double blind study to show that a trained interrogator could get innocent people to confess to crimes they didn't commit almost twice as reliably as they could get a guilty person to confess.

But hey, one thing at a time. It's not like there are people sitting on death row because of eye witness testimony or who confessed to crimes, later to profess they never did it.

Not only are our memories bad they can be re-written after the fact. By suggestion. Either intentionally or otherwise. There are a host of experiments that show this. Every time you recall a memory bits are re-written, and reinforced. So not only is it wrong you are more sure its correct.

Yeah. Human memory is like DRAM with lossy compression and no error correction, operating at or below its refresh rate. But hey, not bad for a bag of soggy chemicals.

The logical solution is to install camera implants on every citizen's head and record everything, so no one can claim they weren't the person who did the dirty deed (whatever it was)... Wait, isn't that like living in London, UK, with security cameras following everyone around?

It is about time! Now how about a zillion other forensic tests. Test the forensics people on the same kind of blind information. eg fabric match, or chemical analysis etc. Blind test , known samples. Unless you can pass the test with 95% you cannot be an expert witness on said subject. How many innocent people are in jail because an "expert" witness really just made a guess as to the attributes of some key piece of evidence.

This kind of thing is something defense attorneys do...pick apart the 'expert' witness' expertise to exonerate (or at least cast a reasonable doubt upon the guilt of) their clients.

I'm not disagreeing with your premise that many so called 'expert' witnesses are given too much credibility, but we already have a process for this. Now as far as (not rich) people not being given adequate (or even adequate) legal council, I think we can do much better.

I had a similar experience in the Army when we were being trained in observation and recall as well as the importance of instant target acquisition and recognition. The demonstration used was quite similar to what you describe. It involved someone in a yellow chicken suit holding an attached style briefcase (with an open top) taking a bright green water pistol out of it then placing that inside the costume. The entire thing happened

At the time, I remembered it as a Big Bird costume despite it not really looking like Big Bird at all. Most of us got the pistol aspect correct but none of us recognized it as a non-threat. Several people thought he'd walked in carrying it openly, not realizing there was a case at all. I remembered it as a paper bag. To this day, however, I wonder if even this memory of it is quite correct!

The important thing, however, is that you can be trained to remember almost all of what you see. The training isn't all that difficult but requires a long period of time. More importantly, however, is the fact that in a stressful situation, recognizing whether someone is a threat or not is difficult even for someone fairly well trained. This has fairly obvious repercussions in modern policing, in fact, yet it's something I rarely see covered.

I've occasionally had to ID people who have passed bad checks at our store.

My problem is that the pictures presented to us for ID very often don't resemble the person who actually came in to the store. This guy comes into the store with a check, and he acts like he's deaf, which makes it very hard to talk to him. The check turned out to be fraudulent, and the local PD came in with a "6 pack", which was basically a series of driver's license photos.

Long story short, I didn't ID the guy. After I said I couldn't, the officer showed me the guy whose name was on the check, and I could see a resemblance, but I still couldn't positively say that was the guy who'd come in the store.

My favorites are the driver's license photos taken when someone was maybe 20, and they're now 45 and look nothing like that picture...

Just one of many problems with eyewitness ID. Turns out, humans have remarkably bad recall.

That's actually the point of the "blind" or "blinded" ID sessions; turns out, body language alone can bias eyewitness IDs. If the cop is *sure* that the suspect is guilty, it can frequently be telegraphed through body language and facial expression. This kind of surety can be contagious, and might cause a witness to not only falsely ID a person, but falsely ID them *without being aware that their memory is essentially fiction.* It's a big problem, and relatively not well known, and I'm glad that guidance is being handed down to reduce possible false positives.

I forget how long ago it was I read this (ironic?) but apparently it's not just that we have bad recall, but that something about our recall process means that every time you ask someone to give an eyewitness account of what they saw it actually introduces new errors into what they recall.

I had a similar experience in the Army when we were being trained in observation and recall as well as the importance of instant target acquisition and recognition. The demonstration used was quite similar to what you describe. It involved someone in a yellow chicken suit holding an attached style briefcase (with an open top) taking a bright green water pistol out of it then placing that inside the costume. The entire thing happened

At the time, I remembered it as a Big Bird costume despite it not really looking like Big Bird at all. Most of us got the pistol aspect correct but none of us recognized it as a non-threat. Several people thought he'd walked in carrying it openly, not realizing there was a case at all. I remembered it as a paper bag. To this day, however, I wonder if even this memory of it is quite correct!

The important thing, however, is that you can be trained to remember almost all of what you see. The training isn't all that difficult but requires a long period of time. More importantly, however, is the fact that in a stressful situation, recognizing whether someone is a threat or not is difficult even for someone fairly well trained. This has fairly obvious repercussions in modern policing, in fact, yet it's something I rarely see covered.

I've never done a visual exercise like those, but I do know I have great difficulty remembering what people say verbatim. I can often remember the meaning*, but not the words. Seems like a similar concept here (e.g. you remembered a container, just not the specific kind).

Measures such as the ones discussed have been in place in the U.K. For years, along with others such as the staff conducting ID procedures being independent of the investigation and giving a suspects' lawyer the right to review an ID procedure before its shown to any relevant witness.

They're still horribly unreliable. Ultimately, as others have noted, even recent human recall is inherently flawed at best.

It is about time! Now how about a zillion other forensic tests. Test the forensics people on the same kind of blind information. eg fabric match, or chemical analysis etc. Blind test , known samples. Unless you can pass the test with 95% you cannot be an expert witness on said subject. How many innocent people are in jail because an "expert" witness really just made a guess as to the attributes of some key piece of evidence.

This kind of thing is something defense attorneys do...pick apart the 'expert' witness' expertise to exonerate (or at least cast a reasonable doubt upon the guilt of) their clients.

I'm not disagreeing with your premise that many so called 'expert' witnesses are given too much credibility, but we already have a process for this. Now as far as (not rich) people not being given adequate (or even adequate) legal council, I think we can do much better.